I use them. I’m based out of Florida and operations have been good with them so far. I’ve used Turnkey Forex for about 2 months and FinPro Trading for about 5 months. Both have really good market execution, deposits via Bitcoin is very fast, and the customer service is by far the best I’ve had when dealing with any broker. Zero problems with them **(knocks on wood).

My next thing to do is to test the withdraw process in 2 ways.

Withdraw via Bitcoin

Withdraw via Wire Transfer

Based on HyperScalper’s experience, withdraw via bitcoin seems to be the fastest way.

No broker is perfect. I am especially irked at the
extremely wide spreads we get at rollover, and for
a considerable time thereafter…

So, officially at 22:00 GMT for 10 minutes, no trading
is permitted. That’s fine, but when trading resumes…

…as we move into the Asian session, there
are spreads on FinProTrading MT4 which are unacceptably
wide. Their liquidity providers I guess, don’t cover some
things very well. GBP/NZD, for example is one that really
sticks out often. We’re talking here about 20-30 PIPs wide
until things stabilize. I wouldn’t complain if their normally
tight spreads expanded by a “reasonable” amount…

This has 2 or 3 consequences: 1) For Traders who use brokerage
stops, the extremely wide spreads can actually trigger those
stops. So I don’t use brokerage stops anywhere close to
the market, or you may be unintentionally stop-triggering…
2) I have to code BOTs to avoid any trading during these
wide-spread conditions, and 3) For STOPs, I try to use
the MID-price between Bid and Ask and have an algorithm
use that to determine whether to Close a positioin… instead
of using brokerage stops.

I can prove all of this because I monitor the 28 major
pairs Spreads constantly throughout the 24 hour period,
although I don’t log all of it…

I’m complained about these allegedly unreasonable spread
anomalies but, in the end, you just have to know that’s
what is going to happen in certain Currency Pairs… During most conditions, these
guys (FinProTrading and TurnkeyForex) have the best
pricing, and the best executions of the brokerages available
to U.S. persons …

I am planning to push more volume through TurnkeyForex because I
want competitive brokerages; however, since they use the same
infrastructure provider ( TurnkeyFX.com ) from a technical
perspective, for Forex, they are likely to be similar or identical.

We do see executions via MT4 from start to confirmation for
Market Orders, which are as low as 100 milliseconds. They
claim to execute in 50 msecs, and so I complain that orders
are being held by at least 50 msecs, sometimes 100 msecs
beyond that, but then with a "retail"
connection, I’d say that’s pretty darn good !

These timings are from a fast computer less than 1 millisecond
from their London servers, located in Amsterdam. As a U.S.
person you might have to add transatlantic transit times if a
signal is initiated state-side ! … LOL

[EDIT] What I mean here is that we have triggers which initiate
automatically, but if you have an interactive session with a “cloud
computer” across the Atlantic, and you manually initiate something,
then obviously you have latencies associated with your
interactive session to the server… I like to initiate a trigger
request, and allow software on the server, to decide exactly when to strike,
so that Transatlantic latency is eliminated. Or, obviously, if you use
Pending or Limit type orders where the controller platform is close to the
brokerage, then you have no issues either…

Julian Yang will be heading the freshly launched Belize-regulated brokerage that will start with a standard MT4 offering.

[U]Excerpts from the Finance Magnates article[/U]:

“The raft of new regulations that are set to come into force later this year in the EU could force a lot of brokerages to go offshore.”

“On their part, offshore brokers are facing big difficulties in securing a bank account and some are typically operating via intermediaries that serve as custodians to the funds that brokers receive as deposits.”

i found some information that links finpro trading to turnkeyfx as being owned by the same people

As I read those Companies House entries, there is no indication of ownership.

We seem to be looking at 3 different companies, and 2 different individuals.

Those 2 individuals have similar names, but different nationalities and birth dates. Both serve (or have served) on the Board of Directors of one (or more) of the 3 companies listed.

It is not unusual for individuals to serve on more than one Board. Some Directors serve on the Boards of two (or more) different (non-competing) companies, in what’s called interlocking directorates – which may or may not be good practice, but is perfectly legal.

• FINPRO (UK) LTD (09068020) appears to be the broker we list as Finpro Trading (UK), although the address (in London) given in the Companies House listing differs from the address shown on the Finpro Trading website.

– Gurbir SINGH (German national, born March 1988) has been an active member of the Board of Directors of FINPRO (UK) since November 2014.

– Gurpartap Singh MALHI (British national, born September 1981) resigned from the Board of Directors of FINPRO (UK) in December 2017.

• FINPRO FX LIMITED (SC567763) is a name I haven’t seen before. Company address is Edinburgh, Scotland.

– Gurbir SINGH has been an active member of the Board of FINPRO FX LTD since July 2017.

• TURNKEYFX (UK) LTD (09913223) appears to be the service provider to both Finpro Trading (UK) and Turnkey Forex (UK), two of the brokers in our Offshore Broker List.

– Gurbir SINGH resigned from the Board of Directors of TURNKEYFX (UK) in April 2017.

– Gurpartap Singh MALHI was appointed to the Board of Directors in December 2017.

I just want to let everybody know that we have just made withdrawals from TW and Finpro and both of the brokers processed the requests within 24hours.

On the different note. We have just started slow migratation to crypto trading. It seems that’s where the volatility is for now not Forex.
I know some forex brokers already offer crypto trading through MT4.
These forex brokers that offer crypto trading experience lots of quotes freezes, huge spreads and bad execution. Thats how forex trading used to be like 10 years ago.

Maybe we need new thread for MT4 crypto brokers.
I think crypto trading is not going anywhere and there is lot of opportunities.

anybody who has account with finprotrading you can go to deposit page and select bank transfer and you will see your money is going to TurnkeyFX (UK) at HSBC bank you don’t even get finpro logo on there mt-4 platform it’s TurnkeyFX

I always had an opinion that TurnkeyFX and FinPro UK is somehow related. I guess there might be a weak link in there (because I also see on companyhouse that owners are different in these companies, just an overlap of directors). But regardless. I think FinPro is a good broker. and so is TurnkeyForex (which seems to be totally unrelated to turnkeyfx or FinPro). But its interesting how TurnkeyFX has evolved as a technology provider. I will try get in touch with them and will see what they have to say about it.

But as always, Thanks Clint for such detailed analysis , Much appreciate it.

On an unrelated note. Should we start looking at some crypto brokers to add to our list. It seems that Crypto brokers can easily take offshore / US clients and also that they can offer an additional set of scope for “new kind” of forex.

MarcinFX:

Maybe we need new thread for MT4 crypto brokers.
I think crypto trading is not going anywhere and there is lot of opportunities.

We know evolve.markets come in this category. I will research more. But for it to be relevant to this thread. The broker must accept US clients.

I have also seen that AVA Trade and GCI Trading both offer crypto trading BUT they DO NOT take US clients, so we should not discuss them in here.

@Clint : What do you think. Obviously this thread is your baby and we should not spam it with unrealated information. Should we be discussing crypto brokers in this thread ? Will you be willing to add them to your list of brokers ?

any forex broker that operate in the european union must be register with one of the recognize regulators, since turnkeyfx is a technology provider finpro is using them to hold clients money witch by pass having to register with a regulator.

In a new Google Adwords Advertising Policy blog post titled Financial Services: New restricted financial products policy (see full text below), online giant Google let the world know what had been speculated on for a while – that it was going to ban ads for cryptocurrencies, as part of its plan to ‘clean up’ digital advertising.

Excellent news, but not great for this site.
Which brings me to ponder this. If ads are banned from all but certified bodies, what about ads on forums? Does this throw the onus onto forum owners to ensure ads they permit on their sites are also certified? If not, could a trader, who follows a link from a forum to an uncertified broker and subsequently gets scammed, take legal action against the forum owners for permitting such ads?

I think it might be worth noting that Macedonia is not a member of the European Union and so not regulated by EU financial authorities, although it is a candidate country to join some day in the future. It is not what I would define as a stable state.

Might be worth keeping in mind when choosing a broker.

In the specific case of LMFX (recently designated as a Trusted Broker), and Macedonia (the Balkan nation where LMFX resides and is domiciled), we’ve been especially remiss in not mentioning the potential geopolitical problems.

For everyone who recognizes the need to dig deeper into this, I would suggest this analysis from the CIA as a starting point —

Scroll down just below the map, click on Open All, and start reading. On this website, the CIA generally doesn’t pull any punches.

If political instability is a problem in Macedonia, we can lay a major part of the blame for that on Obama, on U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Jess Baily, and on George Soros.

In the March issue of the Judicial Watch magazine The Verdict, there is a scathing indictment of recent corruption and mismanagement of taxpayer money at USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), including the disturbing information that Obama and Baily, in cahoots with Soros, actively carried out a program to destabilize the government of Macedonia.

I have a print copy of The Verdict magazine, but I haven’t been able to access it online. So, I will type the last paragraph of the article into this post, as follows:

“USAID has committed other attrocities with public funds, and Judicial Watch has launched investigations to uncover details. In 2017, Judicial Watch obtained records showing that USAID spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with leftwing billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The scheme was masterminded by Barack Obama’s U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Jess L. Baily, who worked behind the scenes with Soros’ Open Society Foundation to funnel large sums of American dollars for the cause, constituting an interference of the U.S. ambassador in domestic political affairs in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Judicial Watch’s ongoing probe has, so far, revealed that USAID earmarked at least $9.5 million to intervene in the Balkan nation’s governmental affairs, which deviates from its mission of providing humanitarian assistance.” – The Verdict, Corruption Chronicles, page 12.

Jess Baily is still U.S. Ambassodor to Macedonia. President Trump should kick his butt to the curb.

George Soros could make this world a better place – just by leaving it.

Just to say these two brokers, who appear to share the same
market services provider TurnkeyFX.com , offer what appear to
be unbeatable commissions. However, you must verify the
commissions your account is being charged, and explicitly
request that you receive their lowest (publicly disclosed)
commission rates.

As for special commission levels, someone elsewhere on the
forum has stated his volume levels permit him to receive
even lower commission levels… But you’d have to spin the
dial a lot most likely in order to be able to negotiate even lower
commish. I’m hoping to do that a bit later this year…

One more thing, I’d like to emphasize that having accounts
with both of these brokers, may allow you some redundancy
and choice… As I’ve said before, the performance is certainly
the highest of the brokers we U.S. persons are able to use…

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I am able to make profitable
trades targeting a 2.8 PIP profit level, using some semi-automated
methods, etc. These low commissions mean that near-target
scalping is viable at these brokers, even if we would all prefer to
take much further targets in our trades.

I’m not sure how well this will show up in the text (column-wise). This is the MetaTrader 4 format, so to get Net Profit, just add (negative) commission to the Gross Profit for the scalp… Denominated in dollars, with trade size 0.1 Lots Live test trades.

IG Group is now heading back to Chicago, some six years after its exit, and has applied for Forex Firm, a Forex Dealer Member (FDM) license, an Introducing Broker license, full NFA membership and a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED) license, with...

“The business is developing new products and services, and is establishing operations in new geographies, in order to broaden its client base, extend its competitive advantage, and to allow it to continue to market OTC leveraged derivatives to...

I just don’t buy that story. Brokers traded against clients before ECN’s
rationalized all of that.

Liquidity Providers take the opposite side of the Retail population 100%
of the time, and they win 100% of the time.

But how does that disadvantage the trader ? Unless the trader is scalping
for very small targets…

Effectively, Market Makers (in the modern sense of Liquidity Providers)
say to the ENTIRE RETAIL MARKET. Come what may, I will defeat all of you
in the short term for small scalps. But I cannot defeat those of you who
hold positions longer term, of which 50% will be winners, and 50% will
be losers. That’s how it works.

Retail short term traders are not given enough upside for Longs to profit,
and not given enough downside for Shorts to profit; for the average trader.

Those of us who do small scalps, with enough specialization and precision,
can be winners; but that is very difficult, both automation and data intensive.

Anybody else dare to chime in on this one?

hyperscalper

I think what @MarcinFX was trying to say is that most retail brokers claiming ECN are not really ECN. In theory, an honest “hybrid” (simultaneous a/b book) is supposed to give you STP execution conditions without any artificial interference that will bust your account.

But it is a question of trust. Who do you trust to actually send your orders to the “real” market? Who can give you fix trade receipts and such when you have a problem or want to check execution. Can customize your price feed and regularly monitors LPs for misbehavior.

I would think by now the retail community would mature beyond 0.1-0.2 pip spread differences being the deciding factor in choosing a broker.

Hello @HyperScalper , I totally disagree with Marcin infact I disagree with a lot of things that he has been saying over last few threads. For example the so called V20 engine that trades under 1 MS because its technically Not possible, unless Oanda has found a way to send orders at a speed faster than light and have the communication messages processed at a speed even faster than that

He is claiming that brokers can NOT survuve unless they take the opposite side of the trades, so essentially that means ALL the surviving brokers take opposite side of the trades (which would mean a cummulative opposite trades of over $4 trillion per day across all the broker community combined !!! ). Lets assume that IT IS TRUE for a minute , So where is the volume on all these dark pools and exchanges coming from ??? if that is not coming from traders, is it coming from outer space ? (sorry to be so extreme, but how else do we understand or critically reason extreme assertion ? ).

I can go on an on about how each one of marcin’s statements did not make any sense from any angle, but IM NOT WILLING TO SHARE MY PRIVATE MYFXBOOK PERFORMANCE with him to gain his respect.

@whywescalp Similar response. Retail forex brokers 99% of them who claim to have “ECN” liquidity are either bucketshop OR running a hybrid A/B book. Not to say that hybrid is a bad thing. But running a pure A-book model is difficult to do unless you have high volume clients. As long as the broker executes all orders without any interference, then theoretically there is no difference. It’s a matter of trust…In order to trade with a market maker, you must have clear execution rules, order cancellation policies, etc. But it is too tempting to simply renege on a deal when it is unfavorable to the broker.

And 1ms trading is possible, but only via 100% automation and co-location. Your VPS needs to be in the same datacenter as the broker. But the above avg retail trader (automated) should be able to deal with up to 20-200ms queue times. Exchanges do microsecond execution.

btw, I briefly looked into TurnKey Fx and FinPro Trading. Glad I’m not restricted to these offshore disasters. I would look into removing my deposit as fast as possible. You are much safer with Oanda or Gain Capital in one of the major jurisdictions (US, UK, Au, Singapore); at least they would likely actually segregate your money. You’d get your deposit as needed.

But running a pure A-book model is difficult to do unless you have high volume clients

Lets do a simple math.

Lets say a bucket shop broker who has about 100 active clients where in every client is trading approx 10 lots per day (20 lots buy + sell). To me that sounds like a small shope who is on the verge of not being able to survive.

Now lets say this bucket shop is trying to compete with larger brokers and gives a very low commission just like our top brokers. Lets assume commission is $2 per lot ($4 round trip)

SO, with just these 100 small traders, trading over 20 trading days in a month the broker will make

Average Number of Lots Per day * 2 * Number of clients * Number of days in a month

SO your maths will be

10 * 2 * 2 * 100 * 20 ===> $ 80,000 per month

So effectively a very small bucket shop will make approx $80,000 USD per month with just 100 active clients paying $2 per lot per side trading just 10 lots per day

Assuming the bucket shop becomes technically good and starts to charge a premium commission of $5 per lot instead of $2. Everything else remaining the same, the theoretical profit of this bucket shop is now $200,000 per month.

Well, to me that sounds like a lot of money to keep running a bucket shop.

Now, assuming that this broker only wants to make money from his clients losses.

Average balance required to trade 10 lots per day will be (very very conservatively) $5000.

So if all the clients loose money the broker will make $500,000. But if he runs a A book he will make $200,000 per month.

I see it as a no-brainer, why smaller bucket shops will not follow a pure A book as that will be a longer term winning proposition. Unless we are talking about shady and crooked brokers who kill their clients will slippages and order rejections techniques.

My suggestion, instead of following consiparacy theories. We should rather focus on quality brokers who have a track record of execution, speed and withdrawals.

There is no gurantee that your “Regulated” broker will not go bankrupt. Think Lehman, Man Financial, MF GLobal etc etc etc etc etc… What did the investors get back from them ? So… why do we pay a premium to deal with them ?

Yes it is true that invetors get lower leverage, higher spreads, higher commissions rates, lower (or NO) client support because essentially daddy CFTC wants us to deal with monopolistic economy where their lobby is happier than their citizens.

I visited their site from my Amsterdam VPS, was geolocated as
being in the Netherlands, so was redirected to their fibogroup.au
site. There I chatted with the rep, asking whether U.S. persons
resident in the U.S. could open Forex accounts. No. Then I asked
whether U.S. persons, resident, say, in the U.K. could open Forex
accounts, and NO that makes no difference. NO U.S. persons,
regardless of residency.

hyperscalper

Any reason to intentionally bring up the US Person affiliation when the applicant is opening the acct?